“Most people spend more time planning their vacations than their own life” This is a quote I heard a long time back from Robin Sharma which gave me serious food for thought. Isn’t it true, how perfectly it describes our life?

In today’s busy life, we are “so busy being busy” and have become so much entangled in the things we do for a living, that we rarely care to take the time to pause and think where we stand in life. Hence we simply let life “drift way” slowly and before we can realize, days become weeks, weeks become months and finally so many years pass by.

For example in the morning, how many of us actually prefer to spend five more minutes sleeping and then jump out of bed, trying to catch up with the hustle-bustle of life to ultimately have the feeling at the end of the day that “Even today was just like any other day”? Have you ever wondered why we get such a feeling? The answer is simple yet overlooked by many of us: we are not living a purposeful life.

Some authors have evoked that in order to make our life a purposeful and ultimately fruitful one, we must focus on goal setting, specially in the morning. Thus, before embarking on the day, just spare five minutes to write your priorities or small goals for the day. Encourage your kids too to make their list of goals so they too can learn to live a life of purposes or how about doing this together with your children and make it part of your daily routine?

Ask yourself or your kids: “What are the things that I must do, to feel good?” Then take a piece of paper (or keep a journal) to write down 2 or 3 goals. Be careful not to be too ambitious and not too chilled out either; the goals should be simple but at the same time challenging enough to stimulate the senses. You can also initially start taking baby steps with small goals and gradually increase the challenge.

Now after noting down the objectives, jot down why is it important for you as an individual to reach these goals. This simple excercise will not only reinforce your sense of purpose but will also help you to smoothly transform your intentions into actions.

Some simple examples can be:

- Objective: Reach work on time.

- Why?

So that I can plan my duties in a mindful manner and this sense of accomplishment will act as a “snow-ball effect” for the rest of the day.

- Objective: Connect with this friend with whom I have not spoken for ages.

- Why?

It will make me feel happy and relieved to get some of his/news because I believe that good relationships should always be maintained.”

- Objective: After coming back from work, play for 10 minutes with my kid(s).

- Why?

I enjoy being with them, it will help me release the stress I brought home from office and it will also strengthen our bond.

Always remember, everyday as you open your eyes in the morning you’ve got a choice to make between 2 options: Either go back to sleep and dream a little more or get up and live your dreams. After all, it’s the choices we make that shape up our lives.

As Lao Tzu said, ““A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” So first decide where you want to go, then take the first small step to go to that extra mile.

Lead your kids to discover and start to walk their own paths by example.